


With All My Best Intentions

by frankie_ann



Series: vampire virus 'verse [1]
Category: Bandom, Disney RPF
Genre: Atlanta, Blood, Blood Drinking, Bloodplay, College AU, Consensual Violence, F/F, GSU, M/M, Multi, Sexual Violence, So Damn Skippy, Vampire Sex, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 15:46:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankie_ann/pseuds/frankie_ann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a few vampires in Atlanta. They’re… Well, they’re weird. Everyone's weird, but they don’t bother to hide it. When Kevin asks about it, Bill says it’s because they’ve learned that it’s a waste of time. Hiding the weird things. Because they’ve realized that everyone does them, so they think it’s stupid to act like they don’t. Even the other things, the *actually* weird things, they don’t hide anymore either. Kevin has had too many conversations with Biscuit to count where she’s just cheerfully picking her nose, or digging in her ear, or hitting on girls on their period because she can smell the blood on them. (Kevin goes to college. Mike, Bill, and Jen Stone are vampires. Insanity ensues.)</p><p>Vampires, sex, blood/biting during sex, lesbian vampire jokes most decidedly in bad taste... Frankly, this fic is silly and a tiny bit gross and if you're bothered by blood, descriptions of sex, bad jokes, or any combination thereof, you probably don't want to read it. If you are googling yourself, your brothers, your bandmates, or your friends, and have found this? Don't read keep going. Unless you're Gabe Saporta, and then please, enjoy yourself, you're most likely going to be amused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With All My Best Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of thanks to both of my marvelous betas, bayoumaharajah, for overall plot-and-timeline help, and sly_fuck for very encouraging enthusiasm and line-by-line commentary.
> 
> This isn’t the sort of thing I would *want* vampires to be, exactly. It’s just that it’s what I think would happen, if actual people suddenly needed to drink blood and had a very difficult time dying.

An Introduction to Vampire Lore By Selena Gomez: 

  
There’s something about actual people. Actual people are gross. Actual people are weird. Actual people are stupid and awkward and they screw up a lot. Actual people pick their noses, forget to brush their teeth and put on deodorant, and smell their hands over and over to check if there’s anything foreign and therefore weird-smelling on them. Actual people have to pee during intimate moments, get inconveniently timed illnesses, get acne in places other than their faces, and always have hair growing somewhere they wish it wouldn’t—or, alternately, can’t get it to grow in places that they wish it would. Actual people want things, some of which are silly or embarrassing, and don’t go after them—out of fear, of repercussions, or the way they will be perceived, or basic and unequivocal rejection. They don’t always get what they want, and so often it’s because of fear, mortal or social. 

So what happens if, suddenly, an actual person, with actual fears and desires, who farts in their sleep and burns toast when they’re cooking, just like everybody else, was impervious to harm? Couldn’t die, except in the presence of some very specific things? They’d still be that same, weird, awkward, greedy, simple and grossly complicated actual person that they were before, but the element of fear? That’d be gone. Maybe it’d stick around for a little while, out of a natural sense of shame or etiquette, but after a while? No, it goes away. When there are no real consequences for actions perceived as dangerous, fear dissipates. 

There aren’t a lot of vampires. If there were, they’d maybe rule the world by now. Or, they might, if they forgot their petty human desires and diversions, and if the ones who turned into vampires were people who wanted that, or had the skills for that, to begin with. But mostly they don’t, and there are only maybe a few hundred, scattered over the world. 

No one knows when the virus started, but it picked up in the first decade of the 21st century. It only affects individuals with a certain mutation, and maybe there were more people with that mutation in those years—maybe it’s the microwaves. Hippies keep saying those things are going to kill the human race. Maybe they are. But the virus struck a few people in the country, then in the city, and it picked up pace, and people started to notice. There are less of them, the vampires, overseas—maybe other countries don’t use so many microwaves. 

The virus made people who were sick miraculously better; there were stories of cancer cures and instantaneous recoveries for coma patients. No one called it a virus then—not until the first coma patient got it into his head to get up and go outside. A few of the first ones burnt themselves to death, scorching their skins, lungs, and eyes until they died. Waves of them died of malnutrition before it occurred to anyone to test them and see why. There’s no overwhelming urge, no “vant to dreehnk your blood” feeling to start with. It’s more like those cravings you get, where you’re hungry, but nothing really sounds good until you find that thing that your body was looking for. They didn’t figure it out until a kid in Chicago cut his hand and his babysitter kissed it better and then nearly drank the kid dry. Then all the ones with the virus—or, okay, a lot of them—went out and started killing people and drinking their blood, because they thought they had to, or were supposed to. Just goes to show you the way people go crazy at the first opportunity. 

A bunch of those died, too, from people canny enough to shove pieces of wood through their chests, or people who managed to hold them off until sunrise. Getting the virus doesn’t give you super strength, super speed, any of that—it just makes you as fast and strong as you could be if you were as healthy as it’s possible for you to be. That tends to be way faster than most people, who are usually a long ways off from healthy, even if it’s not to the point that they notice the inconvenience. So a lot of them died—until the doctors or scientists or whoever the hell does that stuff came out with a statement that said that the “virally infected” only needed a pint or so of blood a month to survive. So the “afflicted” came back, all contrite for having eaten their friends and family and everything, and started buying blood from blood banks and acting mostly like regular people. And then a lot of those died, because people with the virus can only digest fresh blood, straight out of the source. There was uproar, of course, but most people with the virus didn’t have a lot of trouble finding food. There are these little venom sacs that develop over the canines, so if they bite people, the venom seeps in. It’s not a deadly thing—it’s a mild paralytic, slowing movement and wearing off over a few hours, that has the totally awesome side effect of being a crazy powerful aphrodisiac. So it’s not like people were unwilling victims—no, they were lining up to get bitten. 

Once it was proven that there were no negative side effects, as long as the “vampire” had decent dental hygiene, anyway, most of the fuss died down. No one without the mutation could be “turned,” not like vampires in the movies, and there weren’t that many left, anyways, so eventually it faded from the news. Mostly, they don’t kill people—if they over-eat, they get sick and bloated and move slowly for days. Most of them ended up in big cities, where it isn’t unusual for there to be eccentrics who don’t go outside, where young people pass unnoticed—although not all of them are young, being restored to peak physical condition tends to make people look young—and where there are plenty of people for them to snack on without having to deal with a social backlash. 

There are a few in Atlanta. They’re… Well, they’re weird. We’re all weird, but they don’t bother to hide it. 

\--  
\--  
\--

When Kevin asks about it, Bill says it’s because they’ve learned that it’s a waste of time. Hiding the weird things. Because they’ve realized that everyone does them, so they think it’s stupid to act like they don’t. Even the other things, the  _actually_  weird things, they don’t hide anymore either. Kevin has had too many conversations with Biscuit to count where she’s just cheerfully picking her nose, or digging in her ear, or hitting on girls on their period because she can smell the blood on them. He’s mostly stopped being creeped out by it, but there are still days where it makes him want to gag. There are also times when Bill calls Bis “Jennifer, darling,” and Bis threatens to peel all his skin off and pour lemon juice on it while it grows back, and Bill shudders like maybe she’s already done it once or twice. She’s just plain strange. 

Bill’s in Kevin’s Art History class, and he’s one of them. He and Biscuit are the only two Kevin knows, but they hang around with a couple of others, Kevin knows. Bis and Bill were dating when they got the virus, but they’re not, now. Kevin knows they still fool around sometimes—“Just to do somebody else who isn’t going to break,” Bis has told him, more than once, in that relaxed and mildly disturbing way she has—but mostly they’re friends. Bis scares Kevin a little; he thinks she was maybe weirder than most people even before the change. 

But Bill. Bill and Kevin hang out a lot, right, and Kevin mostly doesn’t feel like Bill’s going to eat him. 

\--

Kevin is out late. He knows he shouldn’t be, because Auburn is a creepy street to be on after dark, but it’s late September, and it gets dark pretty early, and there’s cheap Chinese food a block away. He didn’t come to GSU for the awesome night life—he came because it was as far away from California and New Jersey as he could get, and, really, because Selena asked him to. Selena is Kevin’s best friend, ever in the world, and he’s probably going to marry her, someday, when she realizes that he’s a boy, and when he stops being weirded out by boobs. It’s not a gay thing, he knows—he asked Bill. Bill told him it was  _totally normal_  for a guy of Kevin’s age to not want to touch squishy piles of fat on girls’ chests. Kevin would feel slightly better about the whole thing if Bill hadn’t been giggling the whole time. 

But Selena had wanted to come to  _Georgia_ , of all places, because she had a cousin or an elementary school friend or something here, Kevin was never really clear, but she was adamant, and Kevin had nowhere else especially in mind, so he came with her. And now here he is, walking on Auburn Avenue at eight at night, which doesn’t sound that late, except that when you live in Atlanta, you realize that it’s a commuter city, and that all the respectable people are out of the city by six at night, and you’re left with creepers, college students, and the occasional tourist too dumb to notice that half of everything is closed. Kevin double-checks his pepper spray, fiddling with the trigger, and breathes a sigh of relief as he steps up to Wok and Roll. 

He picks up his and Selena’s orders without hassle, and thanks God for the five-dollar student menu. He’s relaxed and sort of hungry, and he takes a deep breath of the only-slightly-polluted-for-a-city air as he steps outside. He’s more confident, now that he has his food, which he knows is stupid, but he’s almost home. 

So, of course, that’s when a drunk guy stumbles into him and says, “Fuck, man, that smells good.” 

Kevin holds his breath for a minute, not exactly sure what the appropriate response is. In orientation, they told all the students to just ignore the homeless people asking for things, because they might get violent or something—at that point, Kevin and Selena were passing notes, and he hadn’t paid a lot of attention. And this guy isn’t exactly asking for money, and Kevin isn’t sure he’s even homeless. Just really, really drunk and kind of smelly. 

“Can I—um. Can I help you?” he asks the guy, feeling for the pepper spray canister in his pocket, just in case. 

The guy is leaning against the wall of a closed restaurant, blinking sleepily at Kevin. He starts to say something, pauses, and pulls out a slightly battered cigarette from his pocket. He lights it and takes a drag, the tip glowing orange in the darkness. 

“That’ll kill you, you know,” Kevin blurts out before he knows what he’s saying. Just like his  _mother,_ god. He’s turning into his mother, and that’s a terrifying thing to think about, so Kevin isn’t going to. 

The guy snorts and shakes his hair out of his eyes. It’s long and dark and scraggly, and, upon further inspection, Kevin is pretty sure he isn’t a hobo at all, because he’s clean-shaven and his jeans and t-shirt aren’t any grosser than Kevin’s own after a day or so of wear. Which isn’t actually saying a lot, because Kevin wears his clothes down like a boy with three brothers does. “I don’t think I have to worry about it,” the guy says, and Kevin jerks back into the moment. 

“Everybody says that, and then they’re surprised when they have lung cancer.” God, Kevin’s mom is just popping out of his mouth left and right. Apparently, non-hobos who are drunk as all heck bring out his mothering instincts, which is weird enough that Kevin doesn’t want to examine it. 

The guy flashes a grin, and runs a hand through his hair. “Kid, I’m not worried. It’s not really your problem, anyways, is it?”

Kevin’s about to reply with something along the lines of, “Well, why are you even talking to me, you weird not-hobo guy?” when the guy just doubles over and throws up. Kevin watches, stomach churning, as the guy finishes and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, straightening up. 

“Sorry about that,” the guy says, like he hadn’t just puked everywhere, but had just accidentally bumped Kevin in an elevator, then extends the not-vomit-mouth-wiping hand for Kevin to shake. “I’m Mike. Carden.” 

Kevin cautiously takes the hand and shakes it. “Kevin. Um, Jonas. Kevin Jonas.” 

Mike grins at him, like a hungry cat would probably grin at a mouse with broken legs, if cats could grin. “I know you,” he says, slowly, like he’s making sure, while he searches Kevin’s face and doesn’t let go of Kevin’s hand. 

Kevin tugs his hand away and jams it into his pocket, uncomfortable. “I’m pretty sure you don’t. I don’t really know anyone here.” 

Mike’s grin broadens. “You do—you know friends of mine. Beckett. Bill. You’re in a class with him, you hang out. And Stone, she talks about you. She said you smell like kittens.” 

That does actually sound like something Biscuit would say, and this guy clearly knows better than to call her by her first name, which suggests that he probably does actually know both of them. Kevin nods, once, carefully. “I do know them, but, uh, I don’t know you. And I really need to get this food back to my friend. She’s waiting on me.” They said, in orientation, that if someone’s messing with you, they’re more likely to go away if you say that you’re expected somewhere. He’s not sure that that applies to friends of friends who are very drunk and who are—are leaning in, clearly trying to smell you and see if your smell in any way resembles kittens. Kevin shifts, uncomfortable. 

“No chance you could show me the way to the dorms, kid? Jonas,” Mike adds, smiling in a way that is distinctively creepy, in a sort of bizarrely friendly way. 

“Which dorms? Are you meeting someone?” 

Mike shrugs. “Something like that. Beckett and I were going to get dinner, he asked me to meet him at the common somethings.” He jerks his head towards Wok and Roll. “I’m starving, but he’d kick my ass if I ate without him.” 

That makes Kevin suspicious. “Bill doesn’t eat,” he says, slowly. “And he really doesn’t eat out.” 

Mike’s grin goes all pointy in the corners. “Sure he does. We go out to eat together all the time. We like the same sort of foods.” 

Kevin feels sort of cold. Well, that would explain the whole vomiting-and-then-acting-like-it-wasn’t-awkward thing. “Right,” he says, stalling a little. “The—uh, Commons, you’re looking for the Commons. I’m, um, not actually going there? But it’s that way and up a couple streets.” He points towards the Commons, the nice dorms, then gestures in the other direction. “But, uh, my friend and I live in the Lofts. They’re the, uh, the other way. If you’ll excuse me—“ 

Mike grabs Kevin’s pointing hand and yanks hard. Kevin stumbles up against him, and the whole world suddenly smells like horrible cheap liquor and cigarettes. Mike takes a deep breath near Kevin’s ear and mumbles something that might be “kittens.” 

“Look,” Kevin says, panicking now, “I don’t think I’d be very tasty, and I really am expected, so Selena’ll call the cops if I’m not back soon, and oh my god are you  _licking me_  what the—“ Mike is nuzzled up to Kevin’s neck, lapping at his jugular like a cat at cream. 

“You’re really fucking squirmy, kid,” he says, sliding one hand down Kevin’s back pocket, and holding Kevin in place with the other around his waist. He pulls out Kevin’s pepper spray and snorts. “Also really poorly equipped for someone who knows vampires. Don’t you carry a stake or anything?” 

Now Kevin is just confused. “Wh—I’m just trying to go  _home,_  can you stop  _licking_  me, and I normally  _have_  a stake, but I was just running like three minutes down the street, okay, and can you please let me  _go?_ Don’t you think Bill will be mad if you eat one of his friends?” 

Mike chuckles into Kevin’s now-damp neck. “No, it’s not like he hasn’t done it once or twice. And I’m not going to eat you, relax. Maybe just have a snack.” 

Kevin had relaxed minutely at the “not going to be eaten” part, but he stiffens again at the “snack” bit. “Seriously, could you not? I’m kind of a germaphobe and I don’t really want someone’s teeth in my skin, especially not someone drunk who just threw up  _everywhere_  and oh my god, stop that.” Mike is nipping at the juncture of Kevin’s neck and shoulder, and sparkling pinpoints of pleasure are seeping in through his skin. Venom, right, Bill told him about that. It’s the venom. He is in no way normally aroused by being accosted by drunk hobo-like vampires. Not that it matters, or anything, cause, hey, this is kinda nice. 

Just when Kevin is half-numb and pliable in Mike’s arms, starting to think, hey, maybe a snack wouldn’t be too terrible, right?—just then, a cell phone goes off in the distance. Or maybe not the distance. Kevin thinks it’s maybe in his pocket. Or maybe that’s Mike’s pocket? 

It’s definitely Mike’s pocket, because Mike yanks it out, and barks an irritable, “What?” into it. 

It’s a crappy cell phone, and Kevin is jerked back into full consciousness by the tinny sound of a pissed-off Bill. He still can’t move properly, it’s like he’s in molasses, but he’s mildly reassured at the sound of Bill’s voice. 

“Yeah, yeah, Beckett, leave off,” Mike grumbles. “I’m on my way.” He snaps the phone shut, jamming it back into his pocket. “You’re in luck, kid,” he says, smirking a little again. “Beckett’s a pissant, but he’s got dinner waiting. Run along home now.” He peels himself away from Kevin, and Kevin tries to listen, tries to run the heck home  _now,_  but his legs aren’t listening, and suddenly aren’t holding up at all. 

Mike is looking down at him from very far away, and Kevin realizes that he’s on his back, on the concrete. 

“Oh, fuck,” Mike says, rolling his eyes, and Kevin would chastise him, because how much does a guy really need to use profanity, anyway? But he can’t really talk, either, just sort of whimper. 

Mike crouches down and yanks Kevin over his shoulder. “You are so fucking lucky I don’t feel like pissing Beckett off tonight, he’s a scrappy bastard. You really do smell like kittens.” He snorts and throws the butt of his cigarette away. “Kittens,” he says, again, like it’s something horrible and mystifying. “Fucking kittens.” 

Kevin tries not to giggle. He thinks he’s maybe hysterical. 

\--

Mike takes him to Beckett, because Beckett knows the kid and probably also knows how to get him home. 

This might, however, Mike reflects as Beckett scolds him and Stone tries to stuff her hands down his pants, have been a bad decision. He should have just eaten the kid and been done with it. 

But when Beckett’s stopped shouting and waving his arms around and making obscene hand gestures that probably would make at least some sense if Mike was paying attention, the three of them take the kid to his building and leave him with the startled girl Jonas blearily claims is “Sellie, awesome, Leeeeeena.” 

As Mike goes back and has dinner with Beckett and Stone—a blushing Freshman trying really hard to be sexy and not make pained faces while they feed off her—he feels a kind of pang and wishes that he’d at least  _tasted_  the kid. It’s not like he’s gonna be able to get that close again, and Stone was right, he smells like innocence and sugar and  _kittens_. It’s mouth-watering. 

It doesn’t hurt that the kid is stupidly cute. Stupidly. With his fucking poodle hair and his big, blinking doe eyes. Mike kind of wants to kill something, it’s so cute. 

\--

Kevin doesn’t have a roommate. His roommate was a quiet, sort of grumpy guy named David, and two weeks into the semester, he moved into the Honors dorms, and Kevin was left alone, not unhappily, with a concrete cell of a room, and two beds. 

He might as well have a roommate, though, because Selena stays in the other bed every other night, and keeps him up, chattering. Not that Kevin usually minds. They’re totally going to get married someday. However, today, Selena will never stop making fun of him for nearly being killed during his first semester at college. Kevin will  _never live it down_. 

“You weren’t even nearly killed like a normal person,” she giggles, snorting into her cereal the next morning. “Weren’t mugged, or hit by a car, or raped by scary hobos. You almost got  _eaten_. Who even does that?” Never mind that Selena doesn’t know any vampires, has never met Bill or Biscuit, and has no idea how utterly  _terrifying_  they can be. Actually, knowing Selena, she’d probably enjoy it. 

“Hey, Selena?” Kevin says tiredly, not even looking up from his oatmeal. 

“Yeah?” 

“Shut the crap up.” Kevin finishes his breakfast, scowling, while Selena dances around his dorm, making fake vampire I’m-gonna-eat-you faces and giggling. 

\--

“So,” Kevin says to Bill as he slides into his seat in the Art History room the next night, “your friend. He tried to eat me.” 

Bill snickers. “I think if he’d actually tried, he would’ve managed, my dear Jonas. He just nibbled a bit. Don’t get your panties in a twist.” 

“Get my—“ Kevin huffs. “Shut up, you.” 

Bill winks at him. “I think he likes you. Want me to set something up, hmmmm?” 

Kevin makes a face. “I’m not  _gay,_  Bill, good lord.” 

Bill stops smirking for a minute, stares at Kevin like he has two heads, and then bursts out laughing. 

Kevin scowls at him until he composes himself—it takes a couple minutes. “And what is so funny?”

Bill sniggers a little more, then says, very seriously, “Right, Jonas. Of course you’re not.” 

Kevin glares again. “That’s right, I’m not.” 

“Okay,” Bill agrees solemnly, then giggles quietly until Professor Gunhouse comes in. 

\--

When Bill and Kevin leave Art History, Kevin sees a familiar frame leaning up against the railing of the steps. 

“Oh, no,” he says to Bill, because there is no way he’s going anywhere with Bill if that weirdo is coming along. Kevin has no desire whatsoever to be nibbled on again. 

Bill just rolls his eyes and ignores all Kevin’s protests, grabbing Kevin’s sleeve and towing him along as he goes up to Mike. “Carden,” Bill greets him, grinning. 

“Beckett,” Mike replies, then, “Kid. Jonas.” He nods at them as a greeting, and falls into step with them as they walk up the street towards the cluster of restaurants near the Aderhold building. Kevin keeps his head down and the hood of his jacket up—maybe if Mike doesn’t see his neck, he won’t try to  _lick it_  again. 

Mike and Bill talk the whole way, and Kevin mostly tunes it out. He doesn’t really want to like this guy, and from what snippets he hears, he thinks he might, if they had an actual conversation when Mike wasn’t trying to sink his teeth into Kevin. 

“Where do you want to eat, my poodle-y friend?” Bill asks him as they approach Aderhold. 

Kevin shrugs. “Don’t really care.” 

Bill gives him a long look. “Kevin. You’re the only one eating actual food. You have to pick.” 

And then Kevin feels kind of stupid, because, right, vampires. They drink blood. Bill only steals Kevin’s food when he feels like being annoying. Kevin scans the row of restaurants, most of which are closed—they mostly close at five, and Art History is a six o’clock class. It’s almost eight, now. “I guess the Landmark is really the only option, this time of night, anyways,” he says, and leads the way into the diner. 

Mike and Bill trail behind, and Kevin tries to remember how to be hungry. 

\--

Mike is everywhere after that. He’s always glued to Bill, and Kevin is also kind of glued to Bill, because he doesn’t know anyone else, other than Selena, who has started hanging around someone named Gabe. Except Biscuit, and hanging out alone with Biscuit just seems like asking for trouble. The last time he tried it, he showed up at her apartment, and she answered the door with blood all over her mouth and her hands, and there was a naked and completely un-bitten girl laying on her coffee table, giggling, and Kevin had run, fast and far, and had tried to never, ever think about what that meant again. That probably hadn’t helped with the whole thing where he’s terrified of girl parts. Which Bill also tells him is perfectly normal, but Kevin’s starting to think that it’s possible that Bill isn’t as entirely sincere as Kevin would like to think. 

Bill’s sincerity aside, Mike is around basically all the time. Eventually, Kevin stops being as jittery around him, because it’s hard to be afraid of someone whose butt you kick at Mario Kart as often as Kevin does Mike, and because Mike is actually sort of less creepy than Bill, most of the time. For one thing, his arms aren’t nearly as long, and he’s not constantly trying to drape them, or the rest of himself, over Kevin. He also doesn’t constantly relate Kevin’s appearance to that of a poodle, which, honestly, is refreshing, because he’s the only one of Kevin’s friends who doesn’t. Although calling them friends might be kind of a stretch. But by mid-October, it’s less of a stretch and more of a little shift. 

Kevin actually kind of likes him. As a friend, and everything. He makes sure not to be around him  _alone_ — Bill’s always there, or Biscuit, or both, but mostly, Mike doesn’t fill him with terror or anything anymore. 

\--

Kevin likes cold weather. It’s his favorite weather, because it mostly happens in winter. And in winter, there’s Christmas, and all of the awesome stuff that goes with Christmas. Like scarves and sweaters and boots and  _mittens_. Kevin loves mittens. He’s wearing his favorite pair. They’re red, with little silver snowflakes all over them in rubber, so he can  _grab things_. They’re awesome. 

He’s still kind of chilly, though. In Georgia, it doesn’t snow at the start of November—it just  _rains._  It rains horrible, freezing, endless rain, and Kevin is decked out in a scarf and mittens and big, puffy boots, but he’s still soaked to the skin, and it’s dark and cold and still raining. He’s waiting on the bus in front of the Student Center, but they take forever when the weather is bad, and he’s starting to think that maybe it’ll be easier to just walk. 

Someone bumps his shoulder. Kevin scoots away and turns, about to apologize for being in the way, and looks up into dark, smiling eyes and a fringe of dark hair. “Mike,” he says, and for a minute, his heart stutters in his chest. But Mike doesn’t look like he’s planning on trying to bite Kevin at the moment, so he adds, “Hi.” 

Mike smirks, in that sort of vaguely threatening, but mostly just sort of sweet way, and presses something big and warm into Kevin’s mittened hands. He looks down—it’s a steaming paper cup from Saxby’s. 

Kevin feels kind of retarded that his first thought is,  _He’s kind of a sweetheart,_  and that he only remembers to think,  _Maybe he’s just trying to butter me up so he can eat me later,_  after he’s thought about how nice Mike’s eyes are for a minute. “I—thanks,” he remembers to say, blushing a little. 

Mike’s smile widens, eating his face up with a grin. It’s almost goofy, and when he rubs his red nose awkwardly, like any other guy trying to do something nice and getting caught at it, it definitely is. “It’s, uh. It’s hot chocolate. You seemed like the type for that sort of thing.” 

Kevin feels his face redden. He is exactly the type; hot chocolate is his  _favorite._  “Yeah,” he says, trying not to sound like a total moron. “Thanks.” 

“Yeah,” Mike says, and bumps Kevin’s shoulder again. This time, Kevin doesn’t move away. 

\--

They wait for a while, but the bus doesn’t come. Kevin drinks his hot chocolate on the walk to the dorms, and when they get there, he’s feeling un-terrified enough that he doesn’t even hesitate to invite Mike up to watch a movie. 

Mike ducks his head and rubs at the back of his neck, and after a minute, he looks at Kevin and says, “Yeah, okay.” 

“I’ll invite Selena, too, and you can meet her, ” Kevin adds quickly, because he realizes that maybe it sounds like… something else. 

Mike’s smile only falters a little, and he nods. “Cool.” 

\--

Mike and Selena get along, in a quiet sort of way. They don’t really talk, but they talk to  _Kevin,_  both of them, and it’s sort of like all being friends. 

When Selena goes with Kevin and Mike to Bill’s apartment, though, it’s sort of terrifying. 

Bill answers the door in what are most definitely girl’s purple corduroys and a bright pink hoodie. “Cardin, Poodle-muffin, you brought me a snack!” he says delightedly, patting Kevin on the head and ushering him, Mike, and Selena inside. 

She stands just inside the doorway, looking up at Bill. Bill is sort of stupidly tall, so she has a long way to look, but if they were going to fight, Kevin would probably put his money on Selena. She fights dirty; Kevin knows this from experience. “You’re very long,” she says, finally. 

Bill nods. “And you have breasts.” 

She nods back solemnly. “Sometimes. Are you planning to try to eat me?” 

“Only in a way you’ll enjoy, little nugget of radiance,” he says, as cheerful as crazy people always are. 

Selena nods, like she’s considering this. “If you try anything, I’ll gut you with a coffee mug and feed you your own lungs.” 

Bill beams. “I’m really very attracted to you right now,” he says, and kisses her hand. 

Selena sniffs and lets him. “As well you should be.” 

Kevin just curls up on Bill’s couch, next to Mike, but carefully not touching, and watches. His friends are weird. He’s sort of afraid of what will happen when he puts Bis and Selena in the same room. 

\--

Kevin has never actually gotten drunk. Mike and Bill like to drink—a lot, really, he’d say it was unhealthy if they were actually capable of dying like regular people—and Selena keeps trying to get him to go to parties with her and her… Gabe. Kevin thinks he’s probably supposed to be jealous of Gabe, since Kevin eventually wants to marry Selena and have lots of adorable children with her, but Gabe is just sort of like a darker, more rubbery version of Bill, as Selena put it, and Kevin has a lot of trouble having a problem with him. He feels like he should probably try, though, which is why, at the party that Selena has finally managed to drag him to, after he’s about four red plastic cups of something sugary to the wind, he’s standing—wavering, more like—in front of Gabe, hands on his hips. 

“You—you’re creepy. And dating Selena. And probably kissing with tongues and stuff.” He pokes a finger into Gabe’s chest. Gabe is tall. Gabe is  _hilariousl_ tall. Kevin giggles. 

Gabe nods. “Probably. Has anyone ever told you that you have lovely hands, little poodle man? Because you do. You should touch me inappropriately with them.” He waggles his eyebrows and swivels his hips a little bit.

Kevin blinks for a minute. Possibly several minutes, because when he stops, Gabe is gone, and he’s sort of drifting sideways, and he thinks, very clearly,  _Why does everyone think I’m gay,_  and  _But he’s dating Selena_ , and  _I should really introduce him to Bill_ , before he feels nauseous and has to lay down, right there, on the floor.

\--

Bill answers the door to his apartment in a pair of what are most definitely women’s cream-colored silk pajama bottoms and a green smoking jacket. Bill is strange like that. 

“Jonas,” he says, slightly bleary, which means he’s drunk, having sex, or hungry, because vampires don’t actually sleep at this time of night. That would be silly, it’s like noon for them. 

Kevin pushes past him, into the apartment, and collapses onto the couch. Gabe waits in the doorway, Selena slung over his shoulder. 

Bill looks at Kevin, furrows his brows, and then looks at Gabe. He looks at Gabe for maybe a little too long, and Kevin tries not to giggle, because Gabe is looking back, and Selena will never let him hear the end of it if he giggles in public, even if she’s asleep. Knowing her, she’d hear it anyways. 

“I’m drunk,” Kevin announces, because it’s the only way to concisely explain why he’s barging into Bill’s apartment while wearing girl’s jeans and smelling like grenadine. 

Bill nods. “I see that. And Miss Gomez appears to share your fate. And you are…?” he trails off, looking at Gabe. They’re about the same height, but Bill still looks like he’s looking up at Gabe, which would be funny if Kevin weren’t already laughing so hard. 

“Gabe,” Gabe says, and Kevin thinks that that’s sort of funny, too. “But I like your limbs, and you have hair like a pretty girl, so you can call me whatever you like. Would you like to be naked?” 

Bill grins. “Oh, I like you.” Kevin knew he would. They’re the same sort of smarmy. Gabe might not be a vampire, he’s too tan, but he might as well be, because he’s  _weird._  

Gabe grins with half of his mouth, and says, “I’m going to take that as a yes,” and starts making out with Bill, with Selena still slung over his shoulder. 

And it’s totally not hot, it absolutely isn’t, and Kevin should totally be affronted on behalf of his someday-wife. But he’s mostly sleepy, and he doesn’t actually remember why he told Gabe to take them here, but he did, and he thinks it was maybe something about not wanting the desk attendant at the dorms to realize that he was drunk and only eighteen, not that she’d mystically know he was drunk, or how old he was, now that he thinks about it. 

He drifts off, barely shifting when Gabe dumps Selena on top of him and starts going down on Bill on the floor. Absently, he wonders where Mike is. Lately, Mike is always sort of… around. 

\--

When Kevin wakes up, his mouth tastes like something died in it. Also, Selena is asleep on his stomach, and Gabe and Bill are missing entirely. And Mike is sitting on Kevin’s ankles, staring at him like he’s maybe thinking about eating him again. 

“Mike,” Kevin says, cautious. His head is throbbing. 

Mike grins. “You were so drunk, Jonas, it was beautiful.” 

Kevin rolls his eyes. Mike is weird. Deeply weird, and when did he even get here? Kevin has no recollection of anything after Bill opening the door in his Oscar Wilde outfit. “Yeah, I’m sure it was. Can you get off my ankles, please?” His mom always taught him to be polite. He supposes it still applies when vampires are sitting on you at—he looks at his watch—two in the afternoon, mocking you for your previous inebriation. 

Mike shakes his head. “I’m disturbingly comfortable, kid. Your ankles are sort of squishy. Also, your girlfriend is drooling, and it’s fascinating to watch.” 

Kevin looks down, and sure enough, there’s a string of drool flowing from Selena’s mouth into the shoulder of his shirt. “That’s disgusting,” he says, a little bewildered. She doesn’t respond, only whuffles a little in her sleep. Mike sniggers. 

“You want coffee?” he asks, after a minute, and Kevin blinks at him.

“Do you even drink coffee?” he asks, curious. He didn’t think vampires drank anything but blood, and, he supposes, alcohol. Now that he thinks about it, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to drink coffee, too. 

Mike shrugs. “Not really. Mostly I just like the smell. Like bacon, and onions. I didn’t like onions, even before the virus. Just the smell.” He gets off of Kevin’s ankles, and there’s a moment of slightly painful bliss as the blood rushes back into Kevin’s toes. 

Kevin follows him into Bill’s kitchen. “Mushrooms are like that for me. I love the smell of them frying, but I gag if I eat them.” As Mike starts the coffee and gets two mugs down from the cabinet over the stove, it occurs to Kevin that Mike seems weirdly familiar with the apartment, like he lives there. Then he wonders where Mike lives. “Where do you live?” he asks, because if vampires can act like there’s nothing awkward about anything ever, then so can Kevin. 

Mike runs a hand through his hair, looking as close to awkward as vampires ever get. “Here and there. Mostly here. Sometimes I stay other places.” He hops up onto the counter, and a hole in the knee of his jeans rips a little further as his knee pokes through it. “Bill’s got an extra room, though, so, yeah, mostly here.” 

“But you don’t—I mean, Bill never said. He didn’t even talk about you, before.” Kevin had been to Bill’s apartment, once or twice, before he met Mike. The only people to ever be there were Biscuit, who practically lived there unless she was sleeping with someone, when she went back to her own tiny apartment, and Gerard, who Kevin had thought was a vampire, but who was actually just an art major. It had surprised him how similar the effects of the two things were, though. 

“I was away,” Mike says, grimacing. “Stone and I had a falling out for a while, she was maybe trying to kill me, you know. The usual shit.” 

Kevin’s kind of impressed. He’s thought before that it’s a good thing he’s on Biscuit’s good side, because she’s scary, in the adorable sort of way that makes her even more terrifying. “Why was she mad at you?”

Mike rolls his eyes. “She’s a girl, they get pissed about everything.” After Kevin just stands there, waiting, Mike sighs and gives in. “Alright, so I maybe had a bite of her boyfriend or something.” Catching Kevin’s accusing glare, he adds, “No harm done! He was there, I didn’t know they were hooking up, we were drunk, he asked me to, it wasn’t a big deal. She swore blood vengeance and kept trying to leave me out in the sun. Beckett told me to piss off until she’d cooled down; I did. That’s it.” 

Kevin snorts. “He asked you to? I can’t imagine a boyfriend of Biscuit’s doing that—everyone’s scared of her.” 

“If you’re fucking Stone, you have to like to live dangerously,” Mike says, a glint of something in his eyes.

“And to have you—what, sleep with him, feed off him? That’s any better?” Kevin makes a face. “You’re just as bad as she is. You’re all… creepy.” 

“He’s much worse, poodle, don’t let the bastard tell you differently,” Bill says, ambling into the kitchen. His entire chest is covered in hickeys and scratches, and he looks disgustingly pleased about it. Gabe follows, looking just as terrible, if twice as cheerful, and there are bite marks in his neck, and in the crook of his elbow. Kevin remembers the horrible sex noises he fell asleep to, and decides that he doesn’t want to be around for the fallout when Selena wakes up and tries to stake Bill. He sort of wants to feel guilty, because it’s sort of his fault, since he had them come here, but he’s too tired and his head hurts too much for him to be bothered. 

“I’m not  _worse,_ ” Mike says, affronted. “I don’t have tits. It’s not possible for me to be worse.” 

“Oh yes. I forgot to mention,” Bill says sarcastically, “You and Jonas can bond over your mutual fear of breasts and female genitalia. Fucking weird, the both of you.”

Kevin pouts at him. “You said it was perfectly normal.” 

Gabe snorts, nipping at the shell of Bill’s ear while Bill gets two more mugs down and starts to pour the coffee. 

“Yes, dear Jonas, it’s  _perfectly normal_. For budding homosexuals.” Bill rolls his eyes and drinks half his mug in one gulp, not seeming to care at all that the coffee is still steaming. 

Kevin glares. “I’m not  _gay,_  Bill, we’ve been over this.” 

Bill grins impishly. “Neither am I. And the difference between us is that I have sex with women and love their breasts.” 

Gabe raises an eyebrow. “You have sex with women?” 

Bill raises one right back, putting his hands on his hips. “And that isn’t your girlfriend out there?” 

“You have a point,” Gabe concedes. He scratches his chin for a moment. “Does it count as gay if you have lady hair?” 

Bill shrugs, falsely nonchalant. “I’ve no idea. Do you count as a man if you fuck like a girl?”

Gabe narrows his eyes. “Oh, bitch, it is  _on_  now,” he says, and rams Bill into the door of the pantry. Kevin politely rescues Bill’s coffee mug from his flailing hand as Gabe jams his hands into the front of Bill’s pajama pants. 

“Sweet, extra coffee,” Mike says, and steals the cup. 

“I thought you only liked the smell?” Kevin says, trying very hard to ignore the sounds from the other side of the very small kitchen. 

Mike drains Bill’s cup. “Well, normally. Now, I’m torn between bleaching my brain and getting you off through your girl jeans, and I’m thinking that coffee will probably help me make the decision.” 

Kevin blinks at Mike’s completely serious face, ducks his head, and flees the room. He bumps Selena on his way out, who looks over his shoulder into the kitchen and yells, “Fuckers, stop doing that in the kitchen! You’re gonna get slobber everywhere, god.” 

Kevin thinks that maybe all of this is a little over his head. 

  
\--

“You ran out on me,” Mike says, three days later, on Wednesday, after Kevin comes out of his World Religions course. Mike is leaning against the wall of Sparks Hall, hands in the pockets of his battered black hoodie, a cigarette falling casually out of the corner of his mouth. Kevin is totally not noticing that Mike’s lips are chapped—it’s seven thirty at night, it’s way too dark to notice things like that. And why would a vampire even have chapped lips? Kevin’s totally imagining that he’s noticing it. Which means he’s staring at Mike’s mouth for no reason at all. “I’m starting to think you’re still afraid of me.” 

Kevin shrugs. He doesn’t actually want to talk about this again. He’s also still working on that whole thing where he’s denying that he had butterflies in his stomach in Bill’s kitchen on Sunday. 

Mike shrugs off the wall and follows Kevin down the steps to the shortcut through the parking garage. “Are you seriously going to ignore me?” 

“That depends,” Kevin snaps, he can’t help it, “are you going to hit on me again?” 

Mike studies him for a minute. “Serious question? Probably. You’re cute. You make me want to get you dirty.” 

Kevin groans. “Can’t you just lay off? I don’t want—“ Mike’s closer, now, like he’s going to try something, he’s  _looming,_ Kevin hates when he does that. Totally hates it, really. “I don’t want things. Um. Like that. With you.” 

Mike catches Kevin’s hand, tugs Kevin towards him. Kevin lets him, but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t. He’s very firm on that. Mike hooks the hand not holding Kevin’s hand into the pocket of Kevin’s hoodie, reels him in closer, till their noses are almost touching. Kevin’s maybe a little less firm about the not wanting when he starts to feel Mike’s breath on his mouth. Kevin feels his breathing go all ragged, and he strains forward, just a little, just to close the distance, and Mike drops his hand and moves away like Kevin burned him. 

Mike glares daggers at him, spits, “You are so full of shit, kid, I think I’d puke if I bit you.” He goes, catches the bus and leaves Kevin there, trembling, wondering what just happened. 

\--

“There’s clearly something wrong with me,” Kevin tells Selena seriously. “Deeply and intrinsically wrong with me.” 

Selena nods, skimming through her Chemistry book with a highlighter. “That’s probably true.” She tucks a strand of dark hair behind her ear. “Maybe you’re inbred.” 

Kevin just gapes at her for a minute. “Seriously, your response to, ‘I think I want to kiss Mike, with my lips, and his lips, his  _boy lips, Selena_ ,’ is that maybe I’m  _inbred?_ ” 

Selena just shrugs. “I’m not clear on what the problem is, here. Mike’s hot, except for the part where he sort of looks like a murderous hobo.” She hums to herself and highlights a passage in the textbook, like Kevin’s world isn’t  _ending right now._  

“Mike is a boy! Selena, he has boy parts! When he’s naked, there are parts that are attached to boys!” Kevin’s maybe freaking out a little. “Also, I think he hates me now.” 

Selena doesn’t even look up. “Well, it’s probably because you’re a homophobic gay dude and you keep flirting with him and then acting like you’re not into him. He’s a vampire, Kev, he’s not used to people being all retarded. You know they all just say what they want.” She thinks about it, then adds, “Except Bill. I’m pretty sure he says things just to see what people will do. Yesterday he asked me if I minded if he  _pleasured himself on Gabe’s hipbones._  Like Gabe’s my property or something. That dude is freaking weird. Who even says  _pleasure?_  Like, _oh, top of the morning, old chap, what’s your pleasure?_ ” She makes an exaggerated gagging sound. 

Kevin boggles at her over the second part of her comment, because he utterly refuses to contemplate the first part. “And you’re okay with that?” 

“Well, why wouldn’t I be?” she asks, and when Kevin just keeps blinking like a deer in the headlights, she looks up with an exasperated sigh. “What, Kevin?” 

“Gabe’s your  _boyfriend_! His boy parts, your girl parts, they go together, and you’re okay with Bill  _molesting him?_ ” There are some things Kevin can’t actually get his mind wrapped around. 

Selena looks at him like he has two heads. Or maybe three. “What are you talking about? Gabe’s not my boyfriend. Kevin, boys are gross, geez. Cooties,” she scoffs. “Boys are covered in cooties.” 

Kevin is starting to think that everything in the world is just screwed on backwards. And possibly upside down. 

\--

Biscuit, sitting in the middle of her kitchen table and listening to Kevin explain his situation, is completely unsympathetic. “I’m confused,” she says, picking at her teeth. There’s a dark, matted bit in her auburn hair, like maybe blood’s dried in it. Her face is sweet, and round, and would be totally innocent, except for the red smear on her cheek. “You claim that you’re a… heterosexual, is that right?” 

Kevin huffs at her. “I’m not  _claiming_ , I am. I am a—I’m straight.” He’s not going to say  _heterosexual,_  like he’s talking about some weird breed of aliens. He’s  _straight_. “What is even in your teeth? You don’t eat.” 

She grins, all sharp edges and amusement. “Oh, you know. Bits of cotton.” 

Kevin tries very, very hard not to think about it, and goes back to the matter at hand. “I’m straight, okay, I like women.” 

“But you don’t like boobs.” She raises an eyebrow. 

Kevin twitches a little, but holds firm. “I don’t, uh, I mean. I could learn to like them, I guess?” He immediately cringes; he really just shouldn’t have come to Biscuit about this. She’s absolutely not the—

And, yep, out come her boobs. Kevin maybe throws up in his mouth a little. They’re all floppy and jiggly, and she’s _waggling_  them at him. 

“For the love of all that is good, woman, put them away!” he yells, covering his eyes. Kevin might have to be sick. 

She pulls her bra back up, but doesn’t bother to button her shirt. She hops off the table and pats him sympathetically on the head. “I just really hope you like cock, Jonas, because otherwise we’re going to have to look into asexual reproduction methods for you.” She opens the window and throws a leg over, hopping down onto the fire escape. 

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Kevin yells after her helplessly. “If I’m sleeping with guys, I’m not reproducing, either!”

A giggle floats back over her shoulder as she tramps down the fire escape steps. “Shows what you know, kitten!”

Kevin puts his head in his hands and sort of wants to die a little. 

\--

Mike eventually starts talking to him again. It’s abrupt and awkward, and it starts with a, “Do you want a soda?” in Bill’s kitchen, and ends with a, “You’re a fucktard, Jonas.” But it comes with a smile, and a hip check, and Kevin feels a butterfly give a faintly hopeful sort of flutter. 

“Yeah?” he says, beaming. 

“Yeah,” Mike says, and hands him a cherry coke.

\--

Biscuit doesn’t normally hang around with everyone else. Mostly, she sits in her apartment, gluing bits of broken crockery to lampshades and trying to sell it on the internet as art. The rest of the time, she’s usually sitting on the wall outside the Student Center, wolf-whistling at girls and offering to show them a good time. Usually, people ignore her, but Kevin has trouble with that—probably because she likes Kevin, and goes out of her way to torment him especially. 

“Kitten!” she crows as Kevin comes up to the bus stop. She stands on the wall and hugs Kevin around the head. Kevin tries not to make any sudden movements or noises. 

“Hey, Bis,” he says, trying to stay casual. Usually, if things bore Biscuit, she leaves them alone.

No chance of that, today, apparently. “Bill says you’re holding out on me.” She leers at him, biting her lip like an excited little kid with a secret. “Bill says you have a  _ladyfriend._ ” 

Kevin stiffens. He knew it would come to this eventually, that he couldn’t keep the two away from one another forever, but he’d sort of hoped. He’s not sure whether or not the universe will implode if he puts them in the same room. “Something like that,” he hedges, stalling. 

The bus does not conveniently pull up and save him. Bis strokes his hair like most people pet their cats. Kevin feels sort of objectified, but it’s probably better to be objectified than snacked on. “Nonsense, kitten. I must meet her. You’ll absolutely have to bring her to my apartment.” 

Kevin sighs, but he knows there won’t be any getting out of it. 

\--

Kevin doesn’t actually want to think about when Selena meets Bis. It’s horrible and Bis is shirtless in the first ten minutes, and Kevin doesn’t even understand how that  _happens,_  how people can look at each other and then know that they want to be naked together. It  _boggles the mind_.

The conversation basically consists of, 

“Hi, I’m Selena, it’s, um, nice to meet you?” 

“Biscuit. You smell like blood.” 

“Um… well. That happens, now and again?”

“How do you feel about being naked while that happens?” 

“…Sure, why not?” 

He leaves Selena at Bis’s apartment. He’ll probably never see her again. He’ll be left alone with crazy Bill and Gabe and their gay, gay sex, and Mike, and his creepy, dead eyes and peculiar smiles. Kevin is doomed. 

\-- 

They’re watching a movie. They’re watching  _Pulp Fiction_ , and it’s the first time they’ve been alone together since Mike forgave him—or acted like he forgave him, whatever. 

Kevin starts to think it’s a bad idea about the time when he reaches for the popcorn, and Mike grabs his arm. 

“Would you fucking  _stop_  that, Jonas?” he demands, glaring at Kevin through his hair. 

“Stop what?” Kevin’s genuinely confused. 

“Taunting me. It’s almost fucking  _December,_  okay, can’t you wear long sleeves?” Mike is staring at Kevin’s wrist, his thumb running back and forth over the vein pulsing under Kevin’s skin. 

“Mike,“ Kevin says, carefully, like he would say ‘good dog,’ to a Doberman with its hackles up. 

“Jonas,” Mike replies equably, not looking away from Kevin’s wrist. His eyes are all dark and sort of creepy, in a way that is most definitely not hot at all. Except that Kevin’s belly is clenching, and he kind of wouldn’t mind if he died right now. 

“What—“ Kevin swallows, and Mike’s eyes flick up, just for an instant, then back down to his grip on Kevin’s arm. “What are you, um. What are you doing?” 

Mike frowns and hums for a moment. Then he says, like he’s still thinking about it, “I’m trying to decide if you’d die of fear of me eating you, or of embarrassment of the hard on you’d get, if I bit you right now.” 

Kevin swallows again, forcing down a lump in his throat. “Mike,” he starts, but then there’s a hot, wet drag over the skin of his wrist, and Kevin’s breath catches in his throat. “I don—I don’t know why you would, uh. Why you’d think I’d be, be _aroused_ by you, uh, doing—“ 

Mike grins at him, looking up through his fringe to meet Kevin’s eyes. “You would be,” he says, like there’s no question at all, like Kevin isn’t straight and also not into being  _fed on._  

“No, okay, look, Mike, you’re—we’re friends, okay, now, and I’ve forgiven you for that whole thing when we met—but—okay, but I’m not,  _not_  into men, alright, or. Or that, the biting thing.” It’s true. It is. And the licking has raised no doubts whatsoever in Kevin’s mind.  _None at all._

Mike looks at him for a long moment, calculating, and Kevin feels something in his stomach tighten. Slowly, without looking away from Kevin’s eyes, Mike raises Kevin’s hand to his mouth. 

“Mike—“ Kevin says, for what feels like the thousandth time today. 

“Jonas. Shut the fuck up a minute, okay?” He doesn’t wait for Kevin to say anything, which is probably good, because he’s dragging his tongue over Kevin’s palm, his wrist, the pads of his fingers, and Kevin doesn’t think he could say anything, anyway. He’s maybe even having trouble breathing—and, as Mike sucks Kevin’s finger into his mouth, Kevin wouldn’t hesitate to raise the ‘maybe’ to a ‘definitely.’ Kevin is  _definitely_  having trouble breathing. 

Mike’s mouth slips off his finger, and he sighs against Kevin’s skin. Kevin’s whole arm spangles. Nervously, Kevin licks his lips, tries to say something, maybe like, “That was nice, really, but no, thank you,” but Mike clearly takes the whole lip-licking thing as an invitation. He leans in, and Kevin’s heart  _stops_. His lips are cool and soft and sort of chapped, and Kevin doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to move again. 

And then Mike is gone, moving away, and Kevin is cold. “What—where are you going?” he asks, honestly confused this time. 

Mike doesn’t meet his eyes. “You don’t want this,” he says, growly, like he’s mad at himself, and then he’s gone, the door to Kevin’s dorm banging shut in his wake. Something that might be “Fucking  _kittens,_ ” drifts through the door. 

Kevin tries really hard not to cry. It doesn’t entirely work. 

\--

“He kissed you?” Bis asks, raising an eyebrow. “Are you sure?” 

“What kind of question even is that?” Kevin demands. “Yes, I’m sure!” 

Selena giggles and leans her head onto Biscuit’s shoulder. “Ha. It’s not like you’d know from your vast wealth of experience.” 

Bis snorts. “That’s terrible, dear, don’t taunt the poor boy.” She stops, considers what she just said, and bursts out laughing. “Never mind.” 

Kevin leaves when it becomes evident that they’re more interested in taking each other’s clothes off than helping him. He tries not to gag at the noises on his way out. 

\--

Bill is Kevin’s last resort. He’s sure not going to Biscuit or Selena again. 

When Kevin goes looking for Bill, he finds him in the Starbucks across from the Aderhold building, and Gerard, the art major, is with him. They’re gesturing wildly at one another over a piece of paper. 

“I’m dying,” Kevin announces, flopping into the seat next to them. 

Gerard looks him over, shoving a tuft of pink hair out of his eyes. “Are you sure? You look mostly in one piece.” 

“As much as you ever do, anyway, poodle,” Bill cuts in, smirking. “But you don’t  _smell_  like you’re dying. You smell like…” He trails off, considering.

“Kittens,” Kevin fills in morosely. His life is ending. He’s stupid, and Mike is wonderful, and Kevin is not even a little bit straight, and Mike thinks, finally, that he is, and everything is  _terrible_. And he smells like kittens. 

Bill snaps his fingers. “That’s it, exactly, Jonas. Kittens. You’ve never been more right.” 

Kevin stands up as Gerard leans in curiously, trying to sniff him. This can only get worse. Bill will probably end up trying to use hand puppets again, like he did when Kevin asked him what scissoring was. Kevin has never been more horrified than he was that night. “You know what? Never mind. I’m just… going to go. Away. Now.” He backpedals out of the coffee shop as fast as his legs will carry him, and only just misses crashing into Mike on the way out the door. 

Mike snorts, shoves Kevin out of the way, and goes to sit with Bill and Gerard. Like he and Kevin didn’t even know each other. 

\--

Mike has the best arms. They’re wiry and strong and there’s a cord of muscle that wraps around his forearms that just _begs_  Kevin to lick it. Kevin has come to terms with this fact. He’s accepted his complete and total retarded amounts of homosexual desire for Mike Carden. 

Mike also has this feral look in his eyes all the time, lately. Like he wants to eat everyone in his way, and like it’s all Kevin’s fault. 

When Kevin finally gets him alone, it’s in the hallway of Bill’s apartment, on an evening in early December, two weeks before finals. He means to say something, he does, but Mike’s all sleepy-looking, like maybe he was doing whatever version of napping vampires have, and his hair is all ruffled and in his eyes. 

“Um,” Kevin says, instead of anything sensible or coherent or resembling an apology for how much of an utter retard he’s been. 

Mike glares at him for a minute and crosses his totally epic arms. “What, Jonas?” 

Kevin still completely fails to respond. He hadn’t factored in the inrush of total mind-babble in the wake of deciding that he was allowed to think about boys—Mike—in a sexy-times sort of way. 

Mike’s lips curl slowly up into a smile. “You’re looking at me,” he says, looking back. It makes Kevin feel uncomfortable and sort of naked. 

“I have _eyes_ , they look at things,” Kevin says, defending himself. He does have eyes. They do look at things. And he can’t tear them away from the strip of skin peeking out between Mike’s shirt and the top of his jeans. It’s so pale that it looks like it’s glowing—Kevin wonders what Mike looked like before the virus. If he was tan, if he had freckles or tan lines or if he sunburned easily. 

Mike slides two fingers under Kevin’s chin, tips his face up. He leans in close enough that Kevin can feel Mike’s breath on his lips. It’s warm and smells like iron and coffee. 

Kevin swallows hard. “Mike,” he says, hardly moving his lips at all. 

Mike’s eyelashes dip down once, twice. “Yeah?” he says, and his voice is rough and low. 

Kevin doesn’t actually remember what he was going to say. It might have been something like “I’m sorry,” but he’s not really sure. Something in his chest is tight, like there’s someone squeezing his lungs and ribs and heart. “Never mind,” he says, looking anywhere but Mike’s eyes. 

“Good,” Mike says, and leans in the rest of the way. 

\--

Mike’s kisses aren’t lazy, or sweet, or careful. He kisses  _hungrily,_  like this is as close to devouring Kevin as he can get, so he’ll take what he can. Kevin sort of can’t help melting into it. 

Mike’s teeth graze Kevin’s lower lip, and a sparkle of venom seeps into Kevin’s bloodstream, making him gasp. Mike grins, like he’d done it on purpose, and sucks hard at the lip. “I want you,” he murmurs into Kevin’s mouth, over and over, and strokes a hand up Kevin’s ribcage, under his shirt. 

Kevin arches into it, presses back against the knuckles that graze his stomach while Mike undoes the buttons on his jeans. “Yeah?” he asks, trying to ignore the tremors in his hands as he slides Mike’s shirt up, over his chest. 

Mike grins wolfishly. “I’m going to make you  _scream,_  Jonas.” 

Kevin doesn’t doubt it. He tries not to give in too quickly, though. He doesn’t think that’s really what Mike’s looking for, anyways. 

\--

Kevin isn’t sure if they’re… dating. But most days, Mike is there when Kevin falls asleep, and he’s usually there when Kevin wakes up, too. Most days, Mike brings him dinner after class, as soon as he can get out once the sun’s set. Most days, Kevin and Mike cheerfully endure everyone’s good-natured taunting, and try to pretend like they aren’t disturbed and turned on, respectively, by Bill and Gabe’s constant, violent, public sex. Most days, Kevin does his best to avoid seeing Selena or Biscuit naked, and mostly he fails, because all of Kevin’s friends have bizarre problems with boundaries and personal bubbles and basic hygiene. 

Kevin has learned not to ask why he doesn’t ever see bite marks on Selena’s neck. Mike has learned that Selena will slap him if he makes that-time-of-the-month jokes, even if it’s obviously that-time-of-the-month. Selena has learned that Bill and Gabe are not monogamous, and are not above trying to get into her strictly lesbian pants. Kevin has learned, through a horrible sock-puppet reenactment, that Selena’s pants are not as strictly lesbian as she’d said they were. Bill and Gabe have learned, painfully, that Bis doesn’t take kindly to boys touching her ladyfriends in naked ways. 

Mostly, though, Kevin has learned how to be stupidly, satisfyingly happy for the first time in a long time. 

\--

Mike is kind of a slut for Kevin. It’s not like he’s Beckett, getting all crazy and naked and on his knees for the first person that says, ‘go,’ but with Kevin? Mike kind of wants to see how far he can push him, how much he can do before Kevin falls apart and lets him pick him up again. And maybe half of it is to prove to himself that he will, will pick him up again, and the other half is to maybe see if Kevin will let him. Either way, Mike goes all out. 

Kevin whimpers when Mike sucks bruises into the sides of his throat. He mewls, hips jerking up frantically, when Mike nips at the skin stretched over his hips. He pants, desperate and wanton and  _gorgeous,_  when Mike goes down on him. Mike would bet money that it’s the first time anyone’s done it to him, too. That shouldn’t be as much of a turn-on as it is. 

The big vein in Kevin’s thigh is pulsing with the rapid beat of his heart. It’s distracting, throwing off his rhythm. Mike runs a thumb over it, over and over, as Kevin pushes up into his mouth. 

“Mike, Mike, please,” he babbles, and Mike’s thumb keeps time over the vein. It almost glows, soft and indigo under the gleam of sweat-damp skin. 

“Mike?” Kevin says, unsure, unsteady, and Mike realizes that he’s stopped moving, entranced by the beat of blood under his fingers. 

“Sorry,” Mike says, and moves to take Kevin back into his mouth. Kevin’s hand on his hair stops him. “What?” he asks, a little peevish, shaking the hair out of his eyes to look up at Kevin. He’s trying, he is—there are just some things that are... distracting. It’s not like he can help it. 

Kevin hesitates. “Are you…” he takes a deep breath. “Is it that you’re. I mean… hungry?” 

Mike shrugs. “Not exactly.” He is, though. He hasn’t fed in weeks, not since he and Kevin got together. Kevin isn’t possessive, but he’s a guy with brothers, brothers who got what he wanted, a lot of the time, so he doesn’t get  _loudly_ jealous, he gets quietly sad, and Mike doesn’t want to see that kicked-puppy look any more than he has to. He doesn’t know how Kevin would react, if he actually thought about Mike feeding on other people, being that intimate—because it  _is_ intimate, however casual Beckett acts like it is—but he doesn’t want to risk scaring Kevin off this soon. 

“You just,” Kevin pauses, like he’s sounding it out. “You just want me.” His face his beet red. “To…eat. Drink. Whatever.” 

Mike sits back on his heels, looking anywhere but at Kevin’s face. “You make it sound like I want to kill you.” He doesn’t, it’s not. It’s not anything like that. Fuck, it doesn’t even feel the same as being hungry—it’s just an urge. A push, to sink his teeth into Kevin’s skin and  _taste_. Even if he is hungry as fuck. “I—you realize, right, that I haven’t, I mean, I’m not feeding off anyone else. We’re together, Jonas, and I didn’t want—I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t all in.” 

Kevin looks away from him, blushing pink. “You—I mean, you don’t. You just want to, uh. A little?” 

“Yeah,” Mike says, and gnaws on his lip a little. “Not—I mean, it wouldn’t be… I don’t want to hurt you.” He pauses; that’s not exactly true. “I wouldn’t want to hurt you anymore than you’d like, anyways.” 

Kevin squawks. It’s sort of stupidly adorable—Mike still can’t get used to thinking  _anything_  is adorable. But everything Kevin does seems to be. “I don’t like things that  _hurt,_  Mike, geez.” 

Mike doesn’t bother to argue, just rakes a fingernail over the curve of Kevin’s hipbone—Kevin’s hips jerk away from the wall, and a little whimper slips out of his mouth. “Oh, yeah, you totally hated that,” Mike teases, licking over the red line to sooth it. 

Kevin shudders and braces himself with a hand in Mike’s hair. It feels nice, like it’s maybe bracing Mike, too. Anchoring him. “Well, okay, not totally,” Kevin concedes, hiding a grin. He sobers after a moment, though, and says, “You really want that?” 

Mike studies his hands. “You wouldn’t hate it, Jonas. I’d—I mean, I’d make sure.” He feels himself reddening. This isn’t right, this isn’t how it goes. People  _beg_  him for this, he doesn’t skirt around it like an awkward fucking teenager. 

Kevin’s silent for a minute. Mike doesn’t look up—doesn’t want to jinx it, doesn’t want to seem too eager. He is, though, he’s trembling, hands shaking like it’s his first time. He barely even  _remembers_  being a virgin, it’s completely stupid, completely fucked up. But his hands are shaking anyway. He rests his head against Kevin’s thigh, feels Kevin’s pulse under his cheek. Kevin runs an absent hand through his hair for a minute. 

“Not—“ Kevin swallows. “Not like this. I mean.” He tugs Mike to his feet. “I mean, yes, okay, yes, but not. Not here. Home? The—the dorm? Bed?” 

Mike grins, can feel the smile eating up his whole face. “You’re serious?” he says, and he doesn’t mean to, but he  _beams._ “You’re sure?”

Kevin smiles back, a little hesitant, but nods. “Yeah. I’m—I’m sure.” 

\--

Kevin pants, open mouthed and damp, as Mike scissors his fingers inside of him. 

“Okay, Jonas?” Mike murmurs in his ear, stroking his hair with his other hand. 

Kevin laughs, a little hysterically. “Oh yeah,” he breathes, and it maybe comes out shaky. He’s not sure if he’s ever been more terrified or more into something in his life. Mike’s fingers brush over something inside of him, and Kevin tries not to make noise, but a little cry maybe slips out anyways. 

Mike chuckles into the skin of his neck. “Fucking hot,” he says, like Kevin doesn’t sound like a complete moron, and presses a fingertip into that spot again. Kevin’s vision goes white, and he’s blinking the stars away when Mike pulls his fingers out. He sits back on his heels and studies Kevin for a minute. 

Kevin feels sort of exposed, lying on his back, knees apart. He tries to sort of curl himself up, to help with the feeling, but Mike pins him in place, lays him out flat. “I feel naked,” he confesses, fighting Mike’s grip a little. 

“You  _are naked,_ ” Mike says, clearly trying not to laugh. “I thought that was the point.” 

Kevin means to argue more, means to explain, but then Mike is pushing his knees back towards his shoulders and pressing inside, and Kevin tries really hard to breathe through the pain. 

“You okay?” Mike asks, not stopping, pushing forward and deeper until Kevin thinks that he’s going to  _cry_. 

Kevin takes a deep breath and steadies himself. “Hurts,” he says, quietly, ashamed, and doesn’t look Mike in the eye. 

Mike nods into Kevin’s shoulder. “It won’t in a minute,” he says, and Kevin believes him. Then he’s tracing distracting lines over Kevin’s throat with his tongue as he rocks in and out, pressing a little deeper each time. It hurts less and less, and then Mike’s pressed up against that spot again, and Kevin doesn’t remember, exactly, what was the problem before, because there are stars exploding in his stomach and it’s all he can do not to moan. 

Mike presses back against it, harder, this time, and Kevin can’t even manage that anymore. Mike is nipping at his neck, sucking at the skin, and there’s a tiny graze of teeth when Mike asks, “Ready?” 

Kevin tries to remember what he’s supposed to be ready for, but he nods anyways, because he’s sort of ready for anything right now. And then Mike bites down, and Kevin feels tears stream out of his eyes as skin splits under Mike’s teeth. 

\--

Kevin spasms around him, clenching down, and it’s all Mike can do not to come right then. Kevin’s breathing is rough and ragged, and he’s clawing frantically at Mike’s shoulders. Mike can’t tell if Kevin’s trying to pull him closer or get away. 

“Shh,” Mike whispers, lapping at the bite. Kevin’s blood sings on Mike’s tongue. It tastes like cherry coke and electricity and sugar and  _Kevin_ , and if Mike could die, he would probably pick right now to do it, because nothing has ever felt like this. It’s the closest thing to sunshine that Mike’s felt in years. “Shh.” He holds Kevin steady, doesn’t move much, just rolls his hips a little now and then, to remind Kevin that he’s there while he feeds. Kevin is whimpering, nails digging into Mike’s skin, and he’s so hard that Mike can feel his pulse mirrored in his cock, trapped against Mike’s hip. 

“Mike,” Kevin says, sounding strangled. “Mike, Mike.” He’s rocking his hips up, into Mike, grinding against him. 

Mike presses back, pinning him to the bed, and feels the growl rip out of his throat, can’t hold it back. “Hold. Still,” he says, and bites again into the wound on Kevin’s neck. Kevin keens, fucking  _keens_ , and his hips lift of the bed as he tightens around Mike again. His mouth opens and closes wetly near Mike’s ear, and Mike pets Kevin’s jaw with one hand, holding his chin clear, out of the way. He bites deeper, sucking more of the sharp, bright liquid into his mouth. “So fucking good,” he hisses into Kevin’s skin, and Kevin doesn’t respond, just sobs and thrusts against Mike’s abdomen. 

\--

Kevin feels like he’s moving through molasses, and like there’s glitter and live wires in his veins. It’s the venom, he knows that, mentally, but he doesn’t really give a crap about anything other than getting Mike deeper inside of him, moving faster, getting over the edge of the exhilaration thrumming through him. 

“Please,” he gasps, and he knows he babbles something after that, but Kevin isn’t exactly sure what it is, and he just wants friction, pressure,  _anything_. 

Mike digs his fingers into Kevin’s jaw and tips his head to the side, exposing more of his throat. “Please what?” he growls, it’s an actual  _growl,_  and Kevin wishes he could be afraid, but he’s just. Just  _pulsing,_  humming with desire and  _desperate._  

“Anything,” Kevin says, and he knows that’s wrong, he doesn’t want  _anything,_  he wants to come, but he’s not sure he can even find the words to ask for that. 

Mike seems to understand, though, because he moves inside of Kevin again, thrusts hard and fast and deep, and Kevin feels his hips hitching up with every motion. Mike’s teeth are gone from his neck, now Mike’s sucking, hard, and Kevin can feel himself getting dizzy and lightheaded through the pressure building, low in his belly. 

Mike growls again, in the back of his throat, and picks up speed. One hand, the one not on Kevin’s jaw, slides between them to wrap around Kevin’s cock and jerk hard, once, twice, and then there’s a rushing noise in Kevin’s ears and a painful white light behind his eyes, and he’s pretty sure that there’s never been anything this amazing, ever, in the history of the entire world. 

Mike pulls away from the side of Kevin’s throat and looks at him. Kevin blinks at him, hazily, and there’s blood all around Mike’s lips when he kisses Kevin, but Kevin isn’t sure he minds. He pants into Kevin’s lips as he thrusts again, fast, and pushes in as deep as he can, holds himself there and groans.

When they’re melted together, sticky and damp, Mike curls himself around Kevin’s side and laps at the knitting wound on the side of his neck. “You regret it?” he asks, roughly, like he’s trying to sound like he doesn’t really care one way or another. 

Kevin tips his head a little further to the side, to give Mike better access. “No,” he says, and means it. He can feel Mike’s grin against his skin. 

END


End file.
